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(No Model.) 5 Sheets-Sheet 1. J. BELL, W. G MELVIL-LE & J. W. POSTER.

WREQK RAISI NG APPLIANCE.

\ Patented Aug. 25, 1896'.

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J. BELL, W. G. MELVILLE & J. W.

WRBGK RAISING APPLIANCE.

No. 566,441. Patented Aug. 25, 1896.

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PatenteQAug. 25, 1896.

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No. 566,441; Baterted Aug. 25, 1896.

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i NITED STATES I ATENT rricn.

JAMES BELL, WVILLIAM CHARLES MELVILLE, AND JAMES WILLIAM FOSTER, OF LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND.

WRECK-RAISING APPLlANCE.

SPECIFICATION formingpart of Letters Patent No. 566,441, dated August 25, 1896.

Application filed September 13, 1895. Serial No. 562,392. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern..-

Be it known that we, JAMES BELL, VVIL- LIAM CHARLES MELVILLE, and JAMEs WIL- LIAM FOSTER, subjects of the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, residing at Liverpool, in the county of Lancaster, England, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in or Connected with VVreck-Raising Appliances, of which the following is a specification.

This invention has reference mainly to appliances, namely, pontoons and machinery employed thereon, for raising sunken wrecks; and it consists of certain improvements or improved constructions, hereinafter specified by which the employment of such pontoons and the operation of raising of wrecks of large sizes and of various sizes can be successfully and safely performed and without the assistance of the rise of the tide; that is, they can be lifted or raised mechanically by the aid of this invention, even in cases where the depth of water over the wreck is, say, as much as twenty fathoms. At the same time it is to be stated the invention may also be applied with advantage to the raising of wrecks in cases Where the power for the actual lifting or raising is afforded by the raising of the tide, or it may also be applied and adapted to raise wrecks partly by the appliances within themselves and partly by the rise of the tide.

The invention, the nature of which is above described, will be set forth with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In the drawings, Figure l is a plan showing the pontoons for raising a submerged or sunken ship. Fig. 2 shows in cross-section the pontoons and the ship to be' raised, taken 011 line 2 2 of Fig. 1. Fig. 3 is a plan of one of the pontoons,shown to a larger scale. Figs. 4. and 5 are longitudinal sections, and Fig. 6 is a cross-section, of the pontoon, taken at the Fig. 3. Fig. 7 is a sectional elevation, Fig. 8 is a plan, and Fig. 9 a cross-section, of valve and conduit controlled thereby connected with pumps for emptying and filling the different compartments of the pontoon.

On either side of the ship to be raised We employ pontoons a, in most cases four, arranged as indicated in Fig. 1. According to wrecks where practically no tide exists.

this invention the pontoons are provided with transverse wells 6, running from one side of the pontoon to the other for the greater part of its width, by which construction the ropes c, by which the vessels are lifted, can be taken up vertically from the ship to and through the pontoons, and a direct pull or strain is put upon the pontoons, and,no matter what the beam of the sunken ship be,the same set of pontoons can be used, and in all cases the raising-ropes can be arranged truly vertically, so as to get a direct pull; and, moreover, with this direct pull the adjacent sides of the pontoons, on the opposite side of the wreck, do not press or bump against each other, the position of the ropes being so arranged that a sufficient distance between the pontoons is always maintained, which is very desirable. In connection with these wells and the 1ifting-ropes Winches d are employed, by which the apparatus is capable of raising The type of winch which is used for this purpose is one wherein the ends of the ropes are not carried and held on the winding-barrel, but in each case the end is held on a separate reel or barrel which moves with the windingbarrel. This type of winch, however, forms no part of the specification, it being made the subject of a separate application filed contemporaneously herewith. This method of stowing and coiling the rope is employed because only one set of coils of the rope can be coiled on the winding-drum d of the winch, it being impossible to have coils one upon the other for purposes such as described where the weights to be raised are enormous, as coils one upon the other will damage the rope and would render it useless for further raising purposes after one use. Assuming the ship to be raised is two thousand tons, and four pontoons each with five wells in them and five winches be used to raise the ship, each winch will carry and on each wire rope at each side of the ship there would be a weight of one hundred tons; that is, there would be a strain of a full hundred tons on each rope at each side.

When the ship is raised by the winches alone, they will be adapted to haul on the ropes at both ends equally.

As regards the use of wire ropes, about ten or eleven inches in circumference, as at pres ent made, is the maximum size that can be handled by man under such conditions as wreck-raising, and therefore, practically, the limit of weight which can be lifted is in this sense governed by this fact. Nevertheless, the weight which may be lifted will vary accordingly as more or less ropes are placed under a ship and the pontoons are made larger or smaller.

A single rope may be passed under the sunken vessel and have one of its ends passed over a winch-barrel on each pontoon, or double the quantity of ropes may be used by securing one end of each rope to a bollard on one pontoon and thence passing it under the vessel and to the winch-barrel, its companion rope being arranged in exactly the opposite manner.

In the act of lifting a ship, where the ropes 0 pass through the wells 17 in any other way but through the center, more weight or strain would be put on one side of pontoons than the other. It is therefore necessary that this should be equalized and the pontoons kept level, and to do this the water-tanks of the pontoons on the side on which the lesser strain comes are partly filled with water, as hereinafter described, to keep the pontoons on an even level.

As regards the special construction of pontoons shown in the drawings, in Fig. 3 the arrangements of bollards are shown. These consist of wrought-metal hollow cylinders of comparatively large diameter, say three or four feet in diameter, riveted to the deck, they being arranged in pairs, so that the rope may be taken turn and turn about on them alternately, the center point between them being in the same line as the channels or wells 1).

The position of the winding-barrels d of the winches d (see the winch on the left-hand side of Fig. 3) is directly over the wells 6. Over the other four wells only the bed-plates d of the winches are shown. The winches are adapted to be moved from one side of a pontoon to the other along the wells 1), and in different cases they are moved so that the rope coming off from the winding-barrels cl would be vertical and the adjacent sides of the pontoons a suitable distance apart; that is, such a distance that they will not touch in the raising operations.

As regards the internal construction of the pontoons, there is, running longitudinally along them, a fore-and-aft bulkhead f at either side, which practically forms the ends also of the wells 5, and the spaces between these bulkheads and the sides of the vessel are divided off by transverse bulkheads h, so that these side chambers are divided up into a number of compartments. These compartments are filled and emptied, as required, for balancing the manipulation in the raising operation, the supply of water to them and its discharge from them being carried through the hollow-box keelson i, running, practically, throughout the length of the vessel,and valves j (for details of which see Figs. 7, 8, and 9) are provided in the keelson in each compartment for controlling the supply and discharge. The water is forced into and discharged from the compartments by suitable pumps 70, connected with the hollowboX keelsons i by pipes i as shown clearly in dotted lines in Fig. 4. The discharge and inlet pipes of the pump are preferably both taken overboard, being the intake-pipes and 70 the dischargepipes.

The chambers formed between and by the bulkheads and the wells 1), with the exception of those at the bow and stern, are used as engine, pump, and boiler rooms and mens quarters, or any other useful purpose, while those at the ends can be filled or emptied to raise or lower either end of the vessel. The floor at the bow of the pontoons is curved up, as shown, and when the pontoons are being towed the bow chambers are empty and the stern ones filled or partly filled with water.

Referring to the detail of the valves j, each valve is raised off and lowered onto its seat j by a rotatable rod j the actuating-wheel 9' of which is disposed within the hollow bollard e. The valve-seat j is placed in the floor-plate i of the keelson i, and below it is a trunk 3' extending downwardly into the compartment for a desired distance, so that the suction produced by the pump in discharging the water will draw the water up through the pump out of the compartment. The valve-rod 7' passes through a stuffingbox j, where it passes through the top of the keelson, a cover j being provided here for gaining access to the valve when required.

To obtain the required area for full flow of water, two valves j are used in each compartment of the pontoon, and one of the valverods 3' is placed in each of a pair of bollards e.

As regards the construction of bollards 6, these are, as stated, and as shown in Figs. 7 and 8, of relatively large metallic steel cylinders, having at the lower part an L-shaped plate 6, which is riveted to the deck of the pontoon, and to the inner cylinder of the bollard and within it are angle-iron and plate brackets e riveted to the deck and the bollard-cylinder.

It is to be stated that the improvements desired to be covered under this invention are not restricted to the specific form of the appliances or parts of the appliances illustrated or specified, as these may be carried out in various modified or different ways without departing from the essential or chief characteristics of the invention. As an instance of a modification in the construction of the pontoons, the wells 1) of the pontoon, in lieu of being constructed as specified with reference to the drawings, may be carried quite across the pontoons, in which case the several parts in which a pontoon will then practically consist will constitute so many vessels, and these would be fastened together by suitable means, with distance-pieces between them at their ends, so as to keep them separated at the required distance apart to give the desired width of well. Another modification with respect to this point of construction of the appliances consists in providing a number of wells in the form of tubular apertures through a pontoon in rows transversely across the pontoon. These modifications will suffice to show or point out in a general way the degree and manner in which appliances under this invention may be variously modified.

What is claimed in respect of the hereindescribed invention is 1. A pontoon for raising sunken ships having a series of water-compartments extending longitudinally on each side, a hollow-box keelson extending through said compartments and having valved openings leading into said compartments, anda flange around each opening depending into the compartment, substantially as described.

2. A pontoon for raising sunken ships, comprising transverse wells 6 through which the lifting-ropes are passed; longitudinal compartments at each side of the pontoon between said wells and the sides of the pontoon; intermediate chambers between the side compartments and the wells; duplex hollow bollards e on the deck of the pontoon at either side, and in line with the transverse wells; a hollow-box keelson 1', serving as a water-conduit, running through the side compartments; a valve in each of said compartments in said keelson, having its operating means disposed within said hollow bollards substantially as set forth with reference to the drawings.

3. In appliances for raising sunken ships, a pontoon having a plurality of comparatively long and narrow transverse wells in and through it, through which the lifting-ropes are adapted to be passed vertically to the wreck at any point laterally on the pontoon, and a vertical pull or strain is put upon the rope at any point at which said rope is fastened or passed through the pontoon; and longitudinal chambers running transversely to said wells at each side of the pontoon between the ends of said wellsand the pontoon sides, substantially as described.

4. A pontoon for raising sunken ships, comprising a plurality of water-tight compartments at either side formed by longitudinal bulkheads, f, and transverse bulkheads h, and wells 1) extending between said longitudinal bulkheads transversely, formed by transverse bulkheads running between said longitudinal bulkheads, substantially as described.

5. In apparatus for raising sunken ships, the combination of a pontoon having aplurality of longitudinal compartments at each side, a hollow-box keelson 1' running along said compartments, a Valve j in each side of said compartments, arranged in connection with a seat in the bottom of the keelson and having an actuating-spindle extending to the top of the pontoon.

6. The combination in a sunken-ship-raising pontoon of a plurality of longitudinal compartments at each side of the pontoon, a hollow-box keelson 11 running through said compartments, a valve j in each of said compartments, arranged in connection with a seat in the bottom of the keelson andworked from above, and transverse wells 29 extending between the inside walls of said longitudinal compartments, substantially as set forth.

7. A pontoon for raising sunken vessels havin g long and narrow transverse wells through the same adapted to permit the passage of the lifting-rope, and the supports for the ropes adjustable lengthwise of said wells whereby the lifting strain may be placed at any point transversely of the pontoon, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof We hereunto affix our signatures in presence of two witnesses.

JAMES BELL. WILLIAM CHARLES MELVILLE. JAMES WILLIAM FOSTER. Witnesses:

ERNEST P. RoYs'roN, FREDERICK JOHN CHEESBROUGH. 

